and sit down by it in solitude and despair. To him shall come the last thief, the last drunkard, and other representatives of past crime and vice; and they shall hold a dismal merrymaking, quaffing the contents of the last brandy-bottle.
The human heart to be allegorized as a cavern. At the entrance there is sunshine, and flowers growing about it. You step within but a short distance, and begin to find yourself surrounded with a terrible gloom and monsters of divers kinds; it seems like hell itself. You are bewildered, and wander long without hope. At last a light strikes upon you. You pass towards it, and find yourself in a region that seems, in some sort, to reproduce the flowers and sunny beauty of the entrance, but all perfect. These are the depths of the heart, or of human nature, bright and peaceful. The gloom and terror may lie deep, but deeper still this eternal beauty.
A man in his progress through life may pick up various matters,—sin, care, habit, riches,—until at last he staggers along under a heavy burden.
To have a lifelong desire for a certain object, which shall appear to be the one thing essential to happiness. At last that object is attained, but proves to be merely incidental to a more important affair, and that affair is the greatest evil fortune that can occur. For instance, all through the winter I had wished to sit in the dusk of evening, by the flickering firelight, with my wife, instead of beside a dismal stove. At last this has come to pass; but it was owing to her illness.
Madame Calderon de la Barca (in "Life in Mexico") speaks of persons who have been inoculated with the venom of rattlesnakes, by pricking them in various places with the tooth. These persons are thus secured forever after against the bite of any venomous reptile. They have the power of calling snakes, and feel great pleasure in playing with and handling them. Their own bite becomes poisonous to people not inoculated in the same manner. Thus a part of the serpent's nature appears to be transfused into them.
An auction (perhaps in Vanity Fair) of offices, honors, and all sorts of things considered desirable by mankind, together with things eternally valuable, which shall be considered by most people as worthless lumber.
An examination of wits and poets at a police court, and they to be sentenced by the judge to various penalties or fines,—the house of correction, whipping, etc.,—according to the moral offences of which they are guilty.
A volume bound in cowhide. It should treat of breeding cattle, or some other coarse subject.
A young girl inhabits a family graveyard, that being all that remains of rich hereditary possessions.
An interview between General Charles Lee, of the Revolution, and his sister, the foundress and mother of the sect of Shakers.
For a sketch for a child:—the life of a city dove, or perhaps of a flock of doves, flying about the streets, and sometimes alighting on church steeples, on the eaves of lofty houses, etc.
The greater picturesqueness and reality of back courts, and everything appertaining to the rear of a house, as compared with the front, which is fitted up for the public eye. There is much to be learned always, by getting a glimpse at rears. Where the direction of a road has been altered, so as to pass the rear of farm-houses instead of the front, a very noticeable aspect is presented.
A sketch:—the devouring of old country residences by the overgrown monster of a city. For instance, Mr. Beekman's ancestral residence was originally several miles from the city of New York; but the pavements kept creeping nearer and nearer, till now the house is removed, and a street runs directly through what was once its hall.
An essay on various kinds of death, together with the just before and just after.
The majesty of death to be exemplified in a beggar, who, after being seen, humble and cringing, in the streets of a city for many years, at length, by some means or other, gets admittance into a rich man's mansion, and there dies, assuming state and striking awe into the breasts of those who had looked down on him.
To write a dream, which shall resemble the real course of a dream, with all its inconsistency, its strange transformations, which are all taken as a matter of course, its eccentricities and aimlessness, with nevertheless a leading idea running through the whole. Up to this old age of the world, no such thing ever has been written.
To allegorize life with a masquerade, and represent mankind generally as masquers. Here and there a natural face may appear.
With an emblematical divining-rod, to seek for emblematic gold,—that is, for truth,—for what of Heaven is left on earth.
A task for a subjugated fiend:—to gather up all the fallen autumnal leaves of a forest, assort them, and affix each one to the twig where it originally grew.
A vision of Grub Street, forming an allegory of the literary world.
The emerging from their lurking-places of evil characters on some occasion suited to their action, they having been quite unknown to the world hitherto. For instance, the French Revolution brought out such wretches.
The advantage of a longer life than is now allotted to mortals,—the many things that might then be accomplished, to which one lifetime is inadequate, and for which the time spent seems therefore lost, a successor being unable to take up the task where we drop it.
George I. had promised the Duchess of Kendall, his mistress, that, if possible, he would pay her a visit after death. Accordingly, a large raven flew into the window of her villa at Isleworth. She believed it to be his soul, and treated it ever after with all respect and tenderness, till either she or the bird died.
The history of an almshouse in a country village, from the era of its foundation downward,—a record of the remarkable occupants of it, and extracts from interesting portions of its annals. The rich of one generation might, in the next, seek for a house there, either in their own persons or in those of their representatives. Perhaps the son and heir of the founder might have no better refuge. There should be occasional sunshine let into the story; for instance, the good fortune of some nameless infant, educated there, and discovered finally to be the child of wealthy parents.
Pearl, the English of Margaret,—a pretty name for a girl in a story.
The conversation of the steeples of a city, when their bells are ringing on Sunday,—Calvinist, Episcopalian, Unitarian, etc.
Allston's picture of "Belshazzar's Feast,"—with reference to the advantages or otherwise of having life assured to us till we could finish important tasks on which we might be engaged.
Visits to castles in the air,—Chateaux en Espagne, etc.,—with remarks on that sort of architecture.
To consider a piece of gold as a sort of talisman, or as containing within itself all the forms of enjoyment that it can purchase, so that they might appear, by some fantastical chemic process, as visions.
To personify If, But, And, Though, etc.
A man seeks for something excellent, but seeks it in the wrong spirit and in a wrong way, and finds something horrible; as, for instance, he seeks for treasure, and finds a dead body; for the gold that somebody has hidden, and brings to light his accumulated sins.
An auction of second-hands,—thus moralizing how the fashion of this world passeth away.
Noted people
